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Scott Draeker Interview About Loki's Demise
An Anonymous Coward writes: "News forge is running an interview With lokigames president Scott Draeker. Looks like the leaked email wasn't a hoax after all. A very sad day for Linux. AOL? Redhat? IBM? someone please help these guys."
I may be off base here, but it seems to me that Linux users want Linux games, not Linux ports of windows games. Yes, I know plenty of people who play Quake on Linux, but compare its popularity to say, nethack. My guess is that nethack, simple as it is, would be way ahead. Nethack is open source, which carries alot of weight with many Linux users, including me.
"AOL?, Redhat?, IBM? someone please help these guys."
Why? You seem to be missing the main point of Loki's business model. Loki took games that the game developers considered unprofitable to port to Linux and paid royalties to these game developers to port these games to Linux.
Now, with Loki having gone out of business, it has proven the developers' original point: Linux gaming is just not economically profitable. Heck, even John Carmack says (and I quote): "[T]he linux market is not viable for game developers to pursue. Linux ports will be done out of good will, not profit motives."
The harsh reality is that no one is going to bail Loki out. At this point, Linux games remain unprofitable. As long as gamers have good 3D support and decently easy game setup in Windows, they will continue to use Windows. My advice is to move on and not pursue the issue until Linux gets more desktop market share.
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mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
I mean, it's very sad for the Linux desktop people, but I've always felt that Linux's real strength was as a low-midrange server 0S, which is what I use it for (quite profitably) both at work and at home.
Mostly, when I hear news like this, I want to tell people 'right tool for the right job'. Right now, the right tool for gaming is Windows. I wish it weren't so, but I also wish that the cheapest place to buy quality hand-tools wasn't Sears Roebuck.
Until the tools change... and this means an infrastructure change to Linux like any of the Wine-focused distros are harping... Windows will continue to be the best platform for games, just as MacOS continues to be the best platform for many multimedia tasks.
Rather than bemoaning YALCB (Yet Another Linux Company Bankruptcy...) contribute to projects like WINE and LindowsOS. Also, Linux GUI's and apps have all gone well past the point where they should be spending as much time on usability and compatibility as they do on technology development and application power:
Example: One of the complaints I hear most frequently from Windows users who switch over to a big name distro like Mandrake or RedHat complain about the speed of Gnome or KDE up against Windows GUI. The speed hit can be explained and fixed through several settings, program switches, and even kernel optimizations, but if I'm a Joe-Sixpack who doesn't wan't to support Microsoft, but sees this behavior and can't fix it easily, then I'm probably going to stay with Windows.
If you want Linux to be a gaming OS, it has to be just as easy to use and configure for everyone as the other gaming OS.
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AOL? Redhat? IBM? someone please help these guys.
The only people that could have helped these guys were Linux Gamers. Where either a) there aren't enough of them, or b) they're not used to having to actually pay for software, c) they didn't like the games Loki did.
whichever it is... the market has decided.
Hmm, let's see how long it takes for this to get modded down...
It sounds like it's a little late, but why not follow the model of the Green Bay Packers?
l
http://www.packers.com/history/stockhistory.htm
Issue voting, non-divident-paying shares, with no chance of stock appreciation. I would be willing to pay $100 for a share. The motive for us is the same as it was for the Packers - to save a cherished institution; buy Loki enough time to make their business model work.
It would be important to prevent any single entity from gaining control, just as it was important for the Packers, by limiting how many shares any individual or organization can possess.
I know, ideally we should have bought the games in the first place, but Mandrake only recently was able to autodetect NVidia cards and install 3D support automatically. I think manually setting up NVidia cards was the big stopper for a lot of people.
The loki installer is the absolute best installer available for linux, and will thrust linux apps into the "one click install" realm for the newbies and appliance users. This has been sorely and desperately needed for years and years for linux. Imagine being able to download and click on abiword.run and it installs the program, makes the modifications to the xfree86-4 to fix the fonts problem, and download and install (or just install) the added extra required libs.
Or make KDE one click installable, or upgradeable.
Thanks Loki for giving. I do know that I will be buying up what I can, as I do have 2 youngster linux newbies that would love mindrover simcity, etc..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...Loki is a business, and if they don't have a viable business model, it's their problem. When you start a business you either make it successful or you don't. It's nobody elses problem to make things work, and it's especially nobody elses problem to infuse cash into a business that has proven time and time again that it's not viable.
I'm not saying Loki was a bad company. I'm saying that the business they were in was not robust enough to sustain Loki. Even the best of the best can only sell ice cubes to eskimos for so long. The Linux gaming market just isn't there, folks. Make your peace and move on.
I wish the folks at Loki (and the former employees) all the luck in the world, and maybe some day Linux will have a viable game market that will bring them all back together again. For now, though, it's not there. Pooling money together to keep Loki alive for the few people who bothered to buy their games is just plain silly. Ditto for asking RH/IBM/AOL to bail them out.
Loki wasn't in the business of charity; nobody should be asked for charity to keep Loki in business.
In addition to everything else you did, you made a four-year-old happy. My granddaughter discovered your port of Heroes of Might and Magic III on my computer and promptly learned how to move the characters around. She now begs to play "the horsie game" when she comes over on weekends.
Of course she has no concept of the strategy or even of the point of the game, but she likes creating armies full of sprites, water elementals and unicorns.
You could always do worse than pleasing a child.
Someone you trust is one of us.
>>I hate to mince words here, but dig this: Some
>>might argue that *BeOS* is the best platform
>>for many multimedia tasks.
Hate to mince words, but those people are idiots.
First - don't talk about BeOS in the present sense. It's dead. Sad, but true.
Second - where would be all these multimedia apps on BeOS? Where's Illustrator? Photoshop? Quicktime? Painter? Freehand? Media Composer? DS? Symphony? ProTools? Quark? Maya? SOFTIMAGE? 3DSMax? Lightwave? Houdini? Pagemaker? Framemaker? InDesign? Combustion? Inferno? Media100? etc etc etc...
See a trend? Certainly BeOS *may have had the potential* to be a good MM os, but there was zero software. And that's what matters. Unless I'm willing to write all the tools myself. If i'm being paid to do graphic design i couldn't give a damn about the OOP'ness and threading model of the OS. I need apps - period. And I need *specific* apps. For example - If i need Photoshop I need Photoshop. I don't want GIMP. It's always kind of laughable when people declare GIMP to be a Photoshop killer. Maybe it will be in 10 years - but it's nowhere in the ballpark now. Not to slag on GIMP, but it's no Photoshop. And when I have a job to do, spending $600 on Photoshop to get the tools I need, vs. getting GIMP for 'free' and having endless headaches and missing 80% of the tools I need.... well there is no choice. Spending $600 on photoshop would pay for itself in a week.
Lets drop the 'coulda-woulda-shoulda' attitude. Next thing you'll bring up how killer the Amiga was.
>>Likewise, I would argue that *Linux* is the >>best platform for gaming...if you're ready to >>cope with a limited selection of games.
You could argue, but you'd be wrong. Limited selection of games, terrible drivers, and an OS that is stuck in 1979.
Example: I want to change the resolution/color space of my monitor. On Win32, ControlPanel->Display->Settings. Click click click I'm done.
On Linux - oh christ. Go try and dig out the chipset docs for your PC and gfx card if you've got them and start digging into the Xfree config files. Make sure you don't type in bad settings that'll cook your monitor or fry the card because you've put in a sync value that exceeds their specs. I got to fight with a default of Xfree4.x for a hour because my mouse type (though supported) isn't even documented (luckily i had an old v3.x config file still laying around). And no, Xconfigurator isn't even close.
>>The file system is faster and more efficient.
Lets see, it seems like they've FINALLY fixed the corruption problems in the 2.4 kernels...... we hope. Too bad about the VM subsystem. We're getting there......
>>My point is that Windows is *not* a superior
>>gaming platform compared to Linux,
Sure it is. It the OS facilities that are required, it is easy to use, and it has the games selection. You should start reading the linux kernel mailing list. The kernel has some *serious* problems. Even the powers that be can admit that.
Where is the linux equivalent of DirectInput? Nope.
Where is the linux equivalent of Direct3D? We've got OpenGL, which is proceeding at a glacial development pace, while D3D updates pop up every couple months --- significant updates. Being able to work with retained mode in D3D instead of being forced to deal with immediate model in OGL can make a big difference to a coder. The points go on and on. If you think D3D is junk, i suggest you read Carmacks points on his opinion of D3Dv8. It's quite nice, and MSFT is doing some good stuff with it.
It's funny --- there are so many things that Win2k/XP offer the user that the linux zealot will say "NOT IMPORTANT!" until linux finally adds it.... then it's the best thing since sliced bread.
C'mon. Lets be realistic. Linux isn't great for games. Generally it's a colossal pain in the ass - and ocassionally not being too much trouble.
I write code all day on Win32 and Linux so I'm not one of these armchair quarterbacks who's talking out of their ass. I like linux for what it's good at, but it isn't good at everything. And it just makes you sound like a naieve zealot to spout off that it is.
I see a lot of people concluded from this that the Linux gaming market is not viable. While that may be the case, Loki in no way demonstrates it.
The problem here is they port a game after it is popular, with a lead time of at least 6 months to get from Windows to Linux. The Linux users who also like to play games alot are typically on x86 architecture, and have some version of Windows (even 95) lying around. Is it worth it to wait 6 months to a year to play a game on Linux, especially since by then the Windows version is in the bargain bin at 1/5 the price of the Linux version.
*If* there is a potential viable Linux gaming market (and that is a big *if*, the Linux desktop userbase is already small compared to Windows, and of those users, I would venture to say that most don't really care that much about games.), then the only hope to see it come forth is if the playing field is level, meaning that releases would have to be simultaneous, equally available (on the shelves), and equally priced. Given the circumstances, only Transgaming can have a short enough lead time to really sell enough to have any good numbers.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The primary ongoing games development for Linux is largely being done for communalistic (or, at least, unprofitable) motives. John Carmack has worked to ensure that linux binaries are available for ID games simply because he likes linux, not because there's any profit to be had in it - he's made this clear again and again.
The truth is that the market, as a market, is too small to support Linux as a target platform. Perhaps appealing to the communal "by geeks, for geeks" ethic would actually be more effective than by claiming, wrongly, that there's some untapped goldmine in the Linux gaming market.
So the problem with Loki's business model is that it was porting games that were already available. The only people interested would be those people who don't run Windows, but want to play the games - that's a minority of gamers. The vast majority of gamers just want to play the game; since it was already released for Windows, they have no need to get it again for Linux.
Now if they were producing new games for Linux, that'd be another matter entirely. But they're producing games for Linux that the hardcore gamers all already have for another platform; there's little incentive for them to buy it again.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10